WHEN GOD DISPENSES JUSTICE
A
Short Play by Wilhelmina S. Orozco
SETTING: Near heaven's gate. God and St. Peter are going through the list of souls that want to enter heaven, and interviewing them one by one.
GOD:
I
am supposed to be God. Does anyone of you here dispute that? I come
with the best of thoughts for the goodness of humanity. But how come,
so many people cannot enter heaven? There are so many souls here who
want to have their cases reconsidered. Peter and I have already
consigned them to hell or to limbo. But they persis in my hearing
their cases for rejudging again.
Peter
who are these people who want to enter heaven? I thought you've
screened them already? Why should I still see them? This is too much
of a bother.
PETER:
My
God, they want their cases to be reconsidered.
GOD:
I
told you already. I don't like going through the same cases twice.
PETER:
Well,
they said god is all merciful. He is not going to be bureaucratic.
He'll reconsider our cases.
GOD:
Oh,
I won't argue with that. That's what they were taught below. So tell
me, who's the first case?
PETER:
My
god, this is a soldier, a spy, an undercover agent.
GOD:
What
shall I do with this one?
PETER:
He
made life hellish for the subjects assigned to them. He said he
deserves heaven because he did not do them intentionally.
GOD:
Ok,
send him in.
SPY:
My
GOD, forgive me, for I have sinned. But it was my superior who
ordered me to do those things.
GOD:
And
whom did you harass?
SPY:
Well,
it's supposed to be a secret, your Honor.
GOD:
You
don't say “Your Honor” to me. “My GOD” will do. Now whom did
you harass?
SPY:
Secret,
my GOD.
GOD:
Now,
you're no longer on earth. Your body is dead. It's your soul that is
here now. So what for are you asking for reconsideration if you can
enter heaven or not when you don't want to confess?
SPY:
You
mean, GOD, that since I am a soul I can talk freely now?
GOD:
Yes,
yes. You won't have to worry about revealing your missions.
SPY:
Yahoo!
Thank you, my GOD. Yes, yes, I will reveal everything.
GOD:
Ok,
so who were those subjects that you harassed?
SPY
Well,
there was a Muslim teacher who was organizing other teachers for
higher salaries.
GOD
What
forms of harassment did you commit against them?
SPY:
Everytime
he came out of his house, I would drive a military jeep in front of
him.
GOD
And
how did this affect him?
SPY
This
made him feel that we were watching him all the time.
GOD:
And
so?
SPY:
Then
he would be guarded in committing too radical acts.
GOD:
(To
the Spy) What else did you do?
SPY:
I
flashed the carlights on his window.
PETER:
(Secretly
to God) GOD, where did they get all these ideas?
GOD:
Peter,
we are still fishing for information. You need not reveal your stand
right away.
PETER:
I
am just appalled my God by their methods of harassment.
GOD:
Keep
your feelings to yourself.
(To
the SPY)
So
what was his reaction?
SPY:
He
was so tricky, my God. He just kept quiet and never confronted me
until I had to leave and be assigned somewhere else.
GOD:
So
are you sorry for all your transgressions?
PETER:
Do
you feel remorseful?
SPY:
(to
Peter) Yes, of course. Yes, my GOD. I am painfully sorry for all the
things I had done to that fellow.
GOD:
Ok,
you may...
PETER:
Wait,
my GOD, he still subjected another victim to harassment. Hey, you,
confess your harassment of that woman.
GOD:
And
who was this woman? What was she doing?
SPY:
She
was a feminist, my GOD.
GOD:
So
what did you do to her?
SPY:
Hah,
my GOD for someone who hates men, like us, I did the best I could to
make life hellish for her.
GOD:
Like
what?
SPY;
Well,
I paid children to drive a bicycle everytime she came out of the
house like this, and to whizz past her.
GOD:
Why
not a military vehicle?
SPY:
My
superior had told me we had to do it subtly. She was a writer and
could write about our acts in the press which could boomerang on us
later on.
GOD:
So
what was her reaction?
SPY:
One
time, as I drove a bicycle myself, she tried whacking me with her bag which made me lose my balance.
GOD:
So
did you strike her back?
PETER:
If
you did, you won't be able to enter heaven at all. And don't lie
because your soul will glow red if you do.
SPY:
No,
no, St. Peter, No dear GOD. I didn't. Besides my superior told me
never to hit back especially at a lady.
GOD:
She
is a woman, not a lady.
SPY:
Aren't
women ladies?
GOD:
Feminists don't like to be called ladies. The term connotes
hoity-toity society bourgeois females and not inclined to doing house
or manual work.
SPY:
My
goodness, you're more knowledgeable than I am about feminism!
GOD:
Why
not? I'm God, I know everything.
SPY:
Oh,
yes of course, I keep forgetting that.
GOD:
So
what else did you do to her? How did you harass her further?
SPY:
Well...
GOD:
By
the way, why were you harassing this woman?
SPY:
Feminists
hate men and she's a feminist. So she must hate men.
GOD:
That
reasoning is called syllogism, from Aristotle. The conclusion is true
and valid if your premises are. But to say, “Feminists hate men”
is a sweeping generalization. That needs validation. You may go to
hell now.
SPY:
No,
wait, my Lord, please let me explain.
GOD:
Peter!
PETER:
Yes,
my GOD.
GOD:
Shall
I let him rationalize further?
PETER:
Yes,
my God. You preached to us to have patience, to love our neighbours.
GOD:
But
his thoughts are terrible.
PETER:
My
God, let's give him one last chance.
GOD:
Ok
this is the last. How else did you harass her? Do you know that
harassing without any valid reson is punishable by expulsion to hell?
You can harass your government officials to do their jobs but not an
innocent civilian.
SPY:
Please
understand it was my superior who ordered me to do so.
GOD:
Stop
using your superior as a scapegoat. You enjoyed your work, didn't
you?
SPY:
Well,
to be honest with you, I did.
GOD:
Hah!
Peter!
PETER:
Patience
my God.
GOD:
PETER!
PETER:
Patience. Patience, please, my God.
GOD:
AH,
ALL RIGHT. All...right!
GOD:
Ok,
go on. (gritting his teeth)
SPY:
I
played nasty songs through the radio for her listening ears. You see,
this woman had a very sharp sense of hearing and she responded
negatively to songs that contained lyrics like “crazy,”
“madness,” “dogs,” “out of my mind,” etcetera. Even if it
was a male singer, she hated the song which any or all of those
words. So she would turn off the radio or shift to another station.
GOD:
How
did she express her disgust if she was outside her home and the radio
is not hers?
SPY:
If
she was inside a jeep or a taxi, she would ask the driver to turn off
or shift stations, Most of the time, she would ask them to turn it
off.
GOD:
Why
so?
SPY:
I
guess she noticed that shifting stations was not effective. The next
station would play the same or a similar tune.
GOD:
Wow,
you were really or your superior was really angry with her, Huh? Why
did you harass her in that manner? Why so?
SPY:
My
superior lost his chance to be the commissioner of the bureau of
internal revenue because of her writings.
GOD:
And
what was so special about the BIR?
SPY:
It
is a lucrative source of funds. So, after being removed, he vowed to
make life hellish for her.
GOD:
What
did he do afterwards?
SPY:
He
pushed another fellow to become the commissioner in order to cover up
his tracks.
GOD:
Wow,
your superior is a rotten egg.
SPY:
No,
my God, he is a general.
GOD:
He
is still a rotten egg.
PETER:
My
God, may I remind you please, not to use foul words.
GOD:
I
am tired of this case, Peter. Can you not assign him to limbo?
PETER:
It's
full already. It has a lot of people whose sins are not so grave.
This one swings between being very grave and not grave.
GOD:
In
your opinion, how grave and why?
PETER:
It's
very grave if he delighted in committings his sins. Not grave if he
was
just ordered around to commit the acts.
GOD:
He
could always deny that he delighted in doing each act.
PETER:
So
far, his acts have not been harmful, to my mind. Ok, tell God what
else you had done.
SPY:
Well,
my superior wanted to find out how she lived. So we put a hidden
camera on the ceiling of her house.
GOD:
What?
That's invasion of privacy!
SPY:
God,
it s harmless camera. We just tried to see how she wokeup in the
morning, and what things she would write in her computer.
PETER:
How
did you do that?
SPY:
We
hired a hacker to embed Spyware in her software.
GOD:
And
who was this?
SPY:
He
lived next door to her.
PETER:
Did
she know him?
SPY:
He
is the nephew.
GOD:
You
destroyed the family bonds by doing that!
SPY:
God,
I was only following orders.
PETER:
Yes,
God, he was only following orders.
GOD:
So
why did you want to know what she was writing? She emailed her
writings to newspapers and they got printed. What for did you have
to know what is being written in her computer?
SPY:
My
superior would ask me to block the email if the article sounded
rebellious and anti-government.
GOD:
You
have made a mockery of democracy in the Philippines. Peter, I want to
consign this person to limbo.
WOMAN:
Let
me in, let me in.
ST.
PETER GOES OUT AND BRINGS IN A WOMAN.
PETER:
My
God, this woman wants to speak about the sins of that person.
GOD:
Let
her speak.
WOMAN:
I
live with my husband and children by the sea. We used to be able to
fish and have food for our table and extra for sale to other people.
PETER:
So,
how did this man come into the picture?
WOMAN:
God,
St. Peter, this man caused a barge with oil to spill in our seas.
PETER:
So
what happened?
WOMAN:
The
oil destroyed our only means of livelihood. It blackened the seas and
made the fish and other sea animals go away from our area.
GOD:
And
then?
WOMAN:
So
we could not fish anymore. We lost our means of earning an income.
PETER:
What
else happened?
WOMAN:
My
family and I developed stomach aches and rashes spawned by the dirty
waters which had crept into our drinking water.
We
would get our drinking water from the ground where we had dug a hole
very deep. But it got contaminated by the oil. And so my family and I
almost died from the pollution and from bathing with it.
We
also became poorer because we now had to buy our drinking water from
the water sellers.
GOD:
(to the spy)
So
why did you cause that barge to spill oil?
SPY:
Dear
God, I was under orders.
GOD:
Who
ordered you?
SPY:
My
superior, my God.
GOD:
Go
on.
SPY:
Our
country was beset at that time by rebels who were out to steal the
power from the officials. They were going to unseat the current
president and conduct people power so that a new government could be
put in place.
PETER:
Why
were the rebels disgruntled? Why didn't they respect the democratic
process of electing officials?
SPY:
They
did, St. Peter but the current president at that time wanted to
investigate the past president for corruption while in office.
The
past president had wanted to continue his term without end but he was
unseated.
GOD:
And
why did he want to continue ruling when under democratic processes,
one should have a term, not a permanent term?
SPY:
My
God, he hated the winning president who ran after his shenanigans –
of making money while in office. So he wanted to insure that no
investigation of any sort would be conducted about his term by
anyone.
So
he used the vice president to unseat the investigating president in
order to maintain his power in the government, secretly. A people
power was conducted and the investigating president was unseated.
He
also manipulated the elections a second time so that she could
continue ruling even without a mandate.
GOD:
If
that is the case, what is the connection of the barge to that issue
of transfer of power?
SPY:
We
had to cover up the tracks of the manipulation of the power struggle.
Although a people power was conducted, and the investigating
president was unseated, the media continued the investigation of the
corruption charges against the past president. The public was agog
over the issue. The radio stations were besieged by queries and the
printed media expressed the people's disgust over the lack of
transparency in governance.
PETER:
In
other words, the people continued their people power through media.
GOD:
You
have not answered my question. What is the connection of the barge
spilling oil into the high seas?
SPY:
By
having a barge spill water in the high seas, the attention of the
public would be on that and not on the issue of the lack of mandate
of the president he had supported.
PETER:
That
sounds like a complicated plot.
SPY:
The
media was very hot on the issue of corruption and the only way to
dissuade the attention of the public was to create another
earthshaking issue. The media was shaking the stability of the State.
GOD:
(to the Woman)
Ok,
you may go now. Do you want to stay in heaven already?
WOMAN:
No,
my God. I want to return to my body on earth. My children, my husband need me and I miss them very much.
GOD:
Ok,
don't lose faith. Always pray and I will answer your prayers.
WOMAN:
Thank
you my dear God. I always pray though sometimes my faith gets shaky
because of people like this person.
(THE
WOMAN LEAVES AND GOD BLESSES HER.)
GOD:
Peter,
this person is through and through amoral. I am inclined to send him
to hell.
PETER:
(to
God) Let us give him a last chance, my dear God. It is difficult to
consign a person to hell when his sins were induced by somebody else.
Let
us get personal with him.
(to
the SPY) So, did you enjoy what you were asked to do?
SPY:
No,
no, er, no St. Peter. I just followed the orders of my superior. That
was it. I am a simple man, with a wife and three kids. I did my job
so I could feed them.
PETER:
God,
his working life was not his own. All the transgressions that we have
heard were done in obedience to his superior.
GOD:
So
how did your wife take your job?
SPY:
My
wife's opinion, God, is of no consequences, as long as I bring home
the money for our food, shelter and education.
PETER:
You
mean, as long as you satisfy the basic needs of your family, then
your wife's opinion of your job does not matter.
SPY:
Yes,
that it. As I said, I'm a simple man, St. Peter. I don't like
complicating situations.
GOD:
So
you enjoyed seeing your wife suffer from your dismissal of her
feelings towards your job.
SPY:
If
I got worried, God, would it do any good? We have to live within our
means. We have to use reason not emotion.
GOD:
Ok,
Peter, I have heard enough. Send him to hell.
PETER:
God,
why?
SPY:
Why,
God?
GOD:
I
could forgive your crimes to that writer only because you were not
acting out of your own accord. You were a robot to your superior's
commands. But now you carried over your callous attitude in your work
into your personal life.
SPY:
What's
wrong with that, God?
GOD:
You
don't know? You were cold and insensitive to the feelings of your own
wife!
SPY:
So
again, I beg your pardon, God, what's wrong with that?
GOD:
So
this time, it's not your superior dictating your actions but
yourself. And for that you deserve hell.
SPY:
No!
PETER:
(TO THE spy)
You
deserve hell, God said.
SPY:
Oh,
please forgive me.
GOD:
You
should have said that to your wife.
SPY:
God,
please give me a second chance.
GOD:
No
second chances for those cruel to their spouses. Don't you know? What
God hath joined, no one can put asunder? By your calllousness, you
were breaking your relationship with her.
SPY:
Oh,
please God, don't send me to hell. I'll do anything you ask me to do.
GOD:
I
can't stand men crying. It does not suit them.
PETER:
God, I thought you had gotten used to men crying.
GOD:
Yes,
I am. Of course, I am. I guess I have to get used to them, those
tears. Ok, send this man to limbo and make him repent.
PETER:
It's
full already, My God.
GOD:
Free one.
PETER:
Ok, off to limbo, you!
GOD:
If
he reforms, let's see if he can be sent back to earth.
(A
WOMAN ARRIVES.)
WOMAN:
My
God, Please don't make him return.
GOD:
Who
are you?
WOMAN:
I
am the wife, my God.
GOD:
Peter!
THE
END.
Folks, at the height of fake governance in our country due to the corrupt manipulation of our election processes, I had to write the truth through fiction. It was difficult being straightforward, and our kababayan did not really accept being so, as they had been burned by martial law tactics and strategies.
Nonetheless, I deemed it very necessary to still write my ideas, and possibly present them to the public. One such was this play, WHEN GOD DISPENSES JUSTICE, which I wrote in September 2009 and got presented at Greenbelt 3, Merk's Bar, courtesy of Ms. Roni Tapia and husband, Richard Merk. I am really grateful to them for having our show presented there. Despite the scarce audience, composed of intellectuals, we got a two-minute standing ovation.
Here is the script. But pardon, the section on the woman has been revised because somebody pilfered the inside sections of my script. Nonetheless, the political perspective stays.
By the way, the script is posted above.
Please check whengoddispensesjustice.blogspot
We shall learn a lot from this experience in the Marawi City siege down south. Our lives will change, to many from Mindanao, it would mean a great deal. For us in MetroManila, as it is quite far and we get our news only through the media, we will also change, for the better. 
